Friday, October 29, 2004

There is a tradition in this suburb that every Halloween they construct a maze in the corn field. On the weekends it's haunted, but today it was just creepy. Night, no flashlight, recent rain made for muddy going. Taking pictures of corn with nothing but the light of the full(ish) moon was no simple task, but some came out looking pretty Halloween-y.

At the airport restaurant (the plane was delayed, so we had lunch at the airport) you're allowed a nice metal fork, but only a plastic knife. To me this seems silly, but maybe I don't know enough about cutlery combat.

Monday, October 25, 2004

Today's theme is portals. The top photo is a monument on the border to Canada. The top says "Children of a Common Mother" and at the bottom on the inside it says, "May These Gates Never Be Closed." Damn fine sentiments.

This is the Robert Miller Gallery, where they have a massive chandelier on display which you can see through the window and where once again I am battling different light. The way this camera works is that you're supposed to name the light source. Natural, flourescent, etc. Obviously it balances the image with a blue or yellow filter depending on what you choose. So here, when I took according to the inside light, I got a blue outside, but when I took according to the outside, I got a yellow inside. I'm not too grumpy about it though, I think the blue effect is actually kind of cool.

Elsewhere in the series of photos from this weekend are shots of the chandelier at the Robert Miller Gallery. What's funny is that another display there is a room full of huge reflective steel balls. So I had to laugh when later in the day I swung by Chelsea Market to use the bathroom (forget it, the line was eternal) and found the same effect on the ceiling.

I've taken a lot of produce shots so far in the short life of this blog. I realize that it's partly cheating to take a photo of something that is already arranged in a display, but the colors get me every time. The carrot shot on top is the best thing I took this weekend. The Greenmarket at Union Square can be a disaster for someone with no self control. Too bad though, that it's not possible to take a photo of what it smells like.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

These companies are familiar enough in the city. What's cool to behold is how they paint their trucks and their headquarters the same color so when you're walking down the street, suddenly you're in a sea of blue.

On the way there we were actually on a smaller ferry, an overflow ferry, because the main one was too full. It still had three decks, plus the decks below where we parked our car. (photos of what that looked like later)

That brown stripe on the horizon is not land but a discoloration in the water. I later learned that it's natural, not pollution. It has to do with water current, changing depth, changing temperature, changing salenity.... These are things my brother-in-law knows.

These Vancouver photos are lasting longer than the actual vacation did.

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Way back what seems like a million years ago, when the N/R was closed, the 1/9 was crushed, and the E was... "you can't get there from here," I used to take the A or C from Fulton to get uptown for work. There were times when there'd be a singing guy who was so moving and soulful that I would actually miss trains just to stand there and keep listening. He did a version of "Born by the River (Change gonna come) that was positively haunting. And one time when I was watching him, this woman kicked his little bag for tips, scattering change everywhere and she didn't say sorry or anything and he looked at her with incredultiy and said more to himself than to her or anyone around, "That's OK, I'm not mad." Quite a guy.

Anway, coming home today there was a different guy in the same spot. A cool bass thumping groover. Quite a set up you see there, he's got an amp, a car battery, a drum machine, a mixer, a few pedal effects, and one floor pedal that starts the drum machine, so he can play an intro and have the drum machine join him instead of the other way around.

Again I stood as trains came and went.

(And again I have a problem with bright light confusing the camera and making the low light areas too dark. I still hate using the flash, but in this case it might have been necessary.)

I find the last two shots most interesting because when the train is a blur, it looks like he's playing something blazing, but when it's stopped and people are walking by, it looks like he's playing something more funky and plodding. -at least to me it does.

I don't have much to compare it to, but I'd say there was a pretty good turnout at the Apple store this evening. On the whole I enjoyed the event, if for no more specific reason than that it was a lot of people gathered to talk about something I'm interested in. Some criticisms: I had already looked up the participating photobloggers, so I didn't really need to re-see their photos in a slide show. At one point someone in the audience (I think Dread Scott) was critical of the fact that the discussion had swung pretty hard from activism to money. I also found that dismaying. I'm also not really into the blog movement patting itself on the back and A-list kissing that is endemic in the blogosphere in general.

The subject of these photos in the woman way down there with the microphone. That's Susan Meiselas. She wasn't on the list of speakers, but they had her Kurdistan site up on the screen, so she must not have been a total surprise.
I have to find out how to deal with disparate lighting. I know the answer is a flash, but I hate the flash. I gotta find a book or something.